NASCAR: What's in a name?

January 08, 2013,
NASCAR.com

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When representatives from the National Championship Stock Car Series -- the NCSSC, NASCAR's predecessor -- held their first major meeting in Daytona Beach, Fla., in December 1947, the 35 men in attendance decided a new name for the new organization was in order.

The ensuing selection process needed a second attempt at a clean finish.

The National Stock Car Racing Association was the original choice, but that idea was scuttled once it was pointed out that a rival organization based in Georgia was already called the NSCRA.

Star mechanic Red Vogt then suggested the name of National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. Even though there was some initial grumbling in the room that the acronym NASCAR sounded too much like "Nash Car," an allusion to an early automaker, the name stuck.

Vogt went on to be a piece of the first Strictly Stock (now Sprint Cup) championship in NASCAR history, turning the wrenches on the No. 22 Ford that Red Byron drove to two wins in the series' first season.

The NSCRA's Strictly Stock division raced in direct competition with NASCAR for two seasons before it folded in 1951.

As for Nash, the Wisconsin-based manufacturer's name lived from 1916 to 1957, when it was absorbed by the American Motors Corporation. Nash Motors Company, one of the earliest carmakers to lend factory support to stock car racing, scored its only win in NASCAR's top series at Charlotte Speedway on April 1, 1951 with Curtis Turner behind the wheel of a '51 Nash Ambassador. In the picture above, Turner’s Nash leads the Plymouth of NASCAR Hall of Famer Herb Thomas in a 1951 race on Daytona’s Beach-Road Course.

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